HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE EXPLORATIONS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO 



By Paul S. Galtsoff, Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Department of the Interior 



The brief historical sketch of discoveries and 

 explorations in the Gulf of Mexico presented m 

 this paper is based on published materials avail- 

 able in this country. Fortunately, the large 

 collection of books and maps in the Library of 

 Congress, Harvard University, American Geo- 

 graphical Society, and the Public Library of New 

 York York City provided abundant material from 

 which the progress of scientific knowledge of the 

 Gulf of Mexico could be traced with reasonable 

 completeness. A wealth of data about the earlier 

 discoveries in the Gulf can be found in the classical 

 works of Winsor (1884-89), Thacher (1896), 

 Lelewel (1852), in 20 volumes of history of voy- 

 ages by Prevost (1746-89), Harrisse (1900), and 

 Fiske (1892). 



A student of history of explorations in the New 

 World finds in the writing of Alexander von 

 Humboldt, especially his Examen Critique . . . 

 (1836-39) a rich source of critical information. 

 A catalog of maps of the Spanish possessions 

 published by the Library of Congress under the 

 title, The Lowery Collection (Lowery 1912) not 

 only gives detailed descriptions of maps printed 

 from 1502 to 1820 but also contains a great 

 amount of information about the explorations 

 and cartography of the Gulf. A brief but com- 

 prehensive review of the explorations between 

 1492 and 1543 is given by Kohl (1863). 



Many other publications and maps in various 

 institutions in the United States were consulted. 

 The more important of them are the catalog of 

 maps, British Museum (1884, 1885), the catalog 

 of geographical documents in the national library 

 in Paris (Paris, Bibliothqeue nationale, 1892), 

 Phillips' list of maps of America, list of geo- 

 graphical atlases (U. S. Library of Congress, 1901, 

 1909-20), and the description of Mexican maps 

 by Torres Lanzas (1900). The publications of 

 Phillips are listed in some libraries under his 

 name, while in others they appear only under his 

 titles (see Bibliography) ; the work of Torres 

 Lanzas may be found under "Spain," "Torres," 



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and "Lanzas." Other references not discussed 

 in the text are listed in the bibliography. 



Reports, letters, and other documents written 

 by the earlier explorers show clearly that ad- 

 venture, military conquest, and search for fabulous 

 riches were the principal impelling forces that 

 lured thousands of men of the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries to embark on the daring 

 voyages beyond the unknown western ocean. 

 Science played only a minor part in these risky 

 undertakings, and scientific observations made in 

 the course of these explorations, which so greatly 

 enhanced the knowledge of the inhabitable world, 

 were merely incidental byproducts of mercenary 

 or military ventures. 



History of the discovery and colonization of 

 the New World is beyond the scope of this chapter. 

 The following pages contain, therefore, only a 

 brief summary of scientific achievements of the 

 many explorations in the Gulf of Mexico from the 

 time of its discovery to the present days. The 

 author hopes that the picture of the scientific 

 progress in the studies of the Gulf which he pre- 

 sents here has not been distorted by errors or 

 omissions. 



PRE-COLUMBIAN ERA 



Written history of the explorations in the Gulf 

 of Mexico naturally begins with the discovery 

 of the New World by Columbus in 1492, but 

 long before the white man set foot on the shores 

 of the islands of America the existence of a large, 

 landlocked body of water now called the Gulf of 

 Mexico was known to the tribes that inhabited 

 its coastal plains and sailed and fished in its waters. 

 Indians living along the west coast of Florida did 

 not venture beyond a narrow coastal zone in which 

 they fished from small dugout canoes. This 

 conclusion is well substantiated by archaeological 

 research in Florida and especially by the study of 

 the contents of numerous shell heaps (Walker 

 1880, 1885; Wiley 1949), which contain the rem- 



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